The Adventures of Rocket Man and Bat Boy
by ThisStatementIsFalse
Summary: Soldier and Scout take on secret identities and… well… misadventures ensue. A Misadventures of the RED Team story!
1. Misadventures Assemble

Chapter One – Misadventures Assemble

~RED BASE~

The thing about the RED base was that, on at least a daily basis, it would drastically change in appearance. In the distant beginning, it had been a proud structure; its tough red walls providing an intimidating, daunting barrier for attackers to face, casting a dynamic, bold shadow over the wasteland stretching in every direction.

Now it looked like that time Heavy accidently sat on a scale model of the Whitehouse in a museum.

Time and time again the nine mercenaries inhabiting the base would mess up, get in a fight, or simply sneeze and the poor building would suffer for it. Occasionally the Engineer would find a spare moment to fix a few things, but all in all they had given up on keeping their living space in one piece.

This all may seem fairly irrelevant, but we're getting there.

As it was, the mercs had decided to be as civil as they could manage and the nine of them had gathered in the kitchen for sort-of-breakfast-more-like-brunch. Except supposedly brunch wasn't manly enough for them, so really it was a nameless meal had during brunch time.

Now, the place stank to high Hell because Pyro had cooked, or, more accurately, incinerated both the food and half the kitchen. Fortunately they were able to beat the flames out with an empty fire extinguisher and a frying pan before they lost the ceiling, or a life, whatever.

Eventually, over the sound of ominous creaking above them, the nine mercs forced themselves to enjoy what may have been waffles in a past life. Pyro's flare gun was on the table so nobody felt any real need to complain.

"I do love waffles," Spy announced loudly, if only to break the uncomfortable silence. He didn't particularly care for waffles. "I'm going to go enjoy them anywhere that isn't here."

The Frenchman cloaked and would never again sprint from a room more quickly, leaving the remainder of the team to conjure up their own escape plans.

Medic took to gradually shoving his chair backward, moving about a foot every minute or so until he eventually scooted into the hallway and speed-walked away. Much less subtly, Heavy faked a huge sneeze then launched himself out the back window with a spectacular smash. The mercs only turned to watch that for a second, but when they looked back Pyro had somehow eaten half the waffle, and it still had its mask on.

"How- how did- _what_." Unable to comprehend this, the Demoman promptly exploded and made a further mess of the kitchen. Sniper casually removed the flying eye patch that hit him in the face and stood up;

"Y'know what? It's an, eh, Australian holiday today. I should go yeah see ya." The marksman dove out the window, bounced off the Heavy and flew flailing into the distance. Engy paused for a moment, taking tally of the mercs still in the room, and blanched when he realised he'd been more or less ditched.

He shot a glance to the Scout and Soldier at the end of the table, only to find them attacking each other with waffles. The defence class facepalmed slowly, because this was clearly the opening to some unexpected twist in events he would soon get dragged into.

"Cue disaster in three, two-" a massive crash interrupted his tired countdown "-one."

Ideally, what happened was that the second floor abruptly ceased to exist. Floorboards and pseudo-buried Mann Co crates cascaded down like rather destructive rain, probably sending Medic and Spy to respawn.

Outside, Heavy and Sniper screamed at a high enough pitch to piss off dogs all over the country and ran away, likely not having any idea where they were going.

Conveniently, the roof had in fact avoided crushing the kitchen and the garage, the former where the story is actually starting and the latter where RV, Teddy Roosebelt and Prometheus the Aperture turret were holding their weekly science debate. Still, the destruction was easily bad enough to extract a little 'dammit' and a pout from Engy.

Suffering an extremely weak attention span, Soldier and Scout suddenly sat up attentively, glancing around the wreckage as if only just noticing it. After a moment of puzzled silence they shrugged aloofly and sauntered away, chucking the waffles at Pyro.

It took maybe three-point-five seconds for Engy to turn and face Pyro, only to find the waffles gone and the merc letting out a contented burp.

"… What _are_ you?"

~WHERE THE REC ROOM USED TO BE~

"Sure is _boring_ around here," Soldier observed, fairly accurately. He had apparently made the decision that juggling bricks was a good idea and so far sported two rectangular bruises, but that didn't stop him. "We haven't kicked BLU's sorry butt in ages."

"Yeah, it kinda sucks," Scout agreed, in the process of fending off a brick sent flying in his direction, "We could mock Demo 'bout the nerfed sticky jumper again."

Now, it's safe to say they probably would've dashed all the way to respawn to do that (I mean, it's _them_) had it not been for the unexpected splintering noise nearby. The mercs rotated in place – twice, just for fun – to find the source, the juggling bricks clattering against both the rubble and Soldier's helmet.

"Ooh." The pair of them was greeted with the sight of what was pretty much the single remaining pillar pitching forward, destined to crush ALL IN ITS PATH.

In fact they weren't even in its path. So that really wasn't much of an issue.

However, something equally as awful as the world ending or the mercs running out of pie was underway- _the shadow of the pillar loomed directly over an innocent hat_. The part of the mercs, reserved for most humans as the 'protect the young' place, responded as their 'protect the hats' function.

They yelled 'No' in slow motion, which would have come out a lot like 'NOOOOOO' had it been written in a speech bubble. Like in a super hero comic book. Not that anything is meant by this simile. Wink wink.

Point is Scout and Soldier all but flew/tripped violently to the hat's rescue, managing to swipe it out of the way in the nick of time before the pillar hit home with an almighty- well, it probably should've been a crash, but it was a reasonably lame thud in actuality. Shame.

"It… it's okay! IT'S OKAY MAN! AW YES!" Scout felt the need to bust out a quick victory dance. Soldier treated the world to The Robot, suddenly wearing the costume for it. "We just saved that friggin' hat!"

"We're _heroes_," Soldier abruptly froze with the dramatic whisper. "Scout look at me-" he punched Scout upside the head for attention, extracting a disapproving 'ow' from his teammate – "WE ARE SUPER HEROES."

Scout paused to ponder this, then; "HOLY CRAP! You're right!" he yelled excitably, "We gotta do some _super hero duties_."

They high fived and sniggered because 'duty' and rushed away to do some good deeds.

~THE GARAGE~

The Engineer and Pyro lounged in the garage, the former wondering exactly what to do about all this mess. Pyro had convinced RV to play Do You Believe in Magic? on the radio and, blissfully ignorant, 'played' the fire axe along with that. They were still there to see Demo, Medic and Spy reappear through the respawn teleporter.

"That was unexpected," Spy admitted, either referring to the brutal collapse of the base or the fact he had arrived at the moment Pyro and co started an air band. Medic shrugged;

"At least it's over now."

Yeah he should've known by this late stage in spinoff stories that it's _never_ just 'over now'. Demo was drunk enough not to care about this but felt like a quick evil laugh none the less, creeping out his fellow REDs to the extent they backed off as far as possible. Actually they went so far they met up with Heavy and Sniper, who had recovered from their small fright to an extent.

Point is that's why the Demoman was the only merc to bear witness to Scout and Soldier charging through the garage and taking Teleporter One to the distant city, and he figured he should have a lie down because he could've sworn they had capes on.

Capes that looked like they might've simply been ripped from one of Heavy's shirts. Hm.

…

Maybe he could go blow something up. That'd be better.

~CITY ONE~

Soldier and Scout made the classic mistake of jumping through a teleporter again, didn't they? Precious idiots.

One rattling, metallic smash against the door of resupply later, the mercs sprang to their heroic poses, which made them appear positively stupid. Negatively stupid? Well, as long as they're having fun.

"Where to first, Rocket Man?" Scout asked, all intense-like. The both of them threw some random awesome air kicks and karate chops in there.

"Wherever duty calls us. Heh heh, duty." Soldier had a little chuckle again, then adopted a rather belligerent expression. "AWAY WE GO, BAT BOY!"

And thus, the new super heroes stormed into the city. God help 'em.

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**Hey, uh, Scout here! Cuz this story's **_**all about freakin' us**_**, Falsie said me and Soldier could do the author's comment things. She said somethin' about not breakin' the forth wall too bad, but meh, what can ya do.**

**Thanks for readin'!**


	2. The RED Knight Rises

Chapter Two – The RED Knight Rises

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**ATTENTION, MAGGOTS. Soldier's log; Author Falsie says thanks for reviewing! I have no idea what that means, but GOOD WORK OUT THERE. You've done yourselves proud. Ought to get a medal.**

**Thanks for reading! Go America!**

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~CITY ONE~

To be fair, the RED team had often been rather heroic in the past- just think of that incident on Australian Christmas. Nobody could deny the awesomeness of that to this day.

However, since then, most situations requiring a hero had been caused _by _the RED team itself. Awful good at getting into trouble, that was their problem. Scout and Soldier, however, remained not-so-quietly confident they would find some kind of situation to resolve.

Their current mind set seemed to be saying 'Hey, y'know what's be _awesome_? Bird's eye view! Duh. Get with it. Seriously you never listen to me what is your problem I mean really go climb a Goddamn building would you?'

Perhaps an exaggeration.

"There's that fire escape above the field where that convention was," Soldier noted, trying to figure out how they could get up there before their flight powers developed.

"Didn't RV break that?" Scout asked dubiously, only for his teammate to point out,

"Yeah, but we left the area and came back. That fixes stuff, doesn't it?"

Interestingly, yes. The mercs scampered to the rooftops with nary a moment of hesitation, succeeding in shattering no less than four windows on passing. Now they were able to look out for trouble! And make it double!

Ahem. To this day nobody has any real idea what the two of them were actually searching for up there. Maybe the classic 'pedestrian screams pointlessly in the middle of the street staring at something just off camera', or similar, but no such event went down.

They did, in fact, seem to forget exactly what a shopping bag was, because this happened;

"BAT BOY THERE'S A GUY RUNNING OUT OF THAT SHOP!"

A man walked casually out of a shop, yes.

"AND HE'S GOT A BAG OF STOLEN CRAP, ROCKET MAN!"

The fellow had a shopping bag of purchased goods, yes.

"ATTACK!" yelled the kinda-sorta heroes, diving off the building at such speed they achieved a nice cape-billow effect. Naturally the height issue (multiple storeys) became a problem at that moment, due to physic-y things the mercs didn't fully understand. Remotely understand.

The bloke had the sense to look up at the noise, and take a simple step backward to avoid the surely irreversible damage getting squished by those two would cause. Scout however double jumped, overshot it and crashed straight through the shop window, setting off the blare of a security alarm. Soldier went ahead and faceplanted on the pavement, kept alive by sheer determination and one heckuva thick skull.

"Ow." He grumbled at the ground, because _damn _that was painful. "Um, stop right there – _ow this is so painful you wouldn't even_ – criminal scum… ah."

The random person blinked uncomprehendingly.

"I'm okay!" Scout called from the depths of the building. He proceeded to trip back outside through the other front window. "… I'm not okay!"

Covered in glass shards, the pair of REDs lay down for a short while, leaving the guy to awkwardly step over them and make his slightly disturbed way home. Only after using his shovel and some elaborate yoga poses, Soldier eventually managed to get to his feet. He shoved Scout upright with the shovel and they waited there, completely devoid of emotion, for a few blank seconds.

"… We did a good thing." Soldier insisted. It didn't even look like he believed himself.

"Yeah. A- a great, a great thing. Today. Just now." Scout put a lot of effort into a single half-assed nod.

A bus chose that moment to drive past, so the mercs went ahead and jumped onto the side just to get the Hell outta there.

~ROOF OF THE BUS~

At this stage in their heroing career, their short attention span proved beneficial.

"Back to hero work!" the REDs cheered, highfiving. They were getting some pretty sweet breeze up on the roof of the moving bus, though the sights were fairly unspectacular. A mere few of the city folk paid the bus-surfing mercs any mind - they'd turned up here and been weird too often for it to be a surprise anymore.

Anyway the REDs got onto the topic of cool birthmarks and scars which could potentially be the source of their superpowers.

"Well, I gotta tattoo." Scout commented absently, and at Soldier's disbelieving expression he pointed it out.

"Scout that's clearly a freckle."

"Well _yeah_, it's a tattoo _of_ a freckle. Dumbass."

There wasn't even time for a fight to break out over that before the bus passed under a bridge and the offense classes were shoved back to street level. They hit the cold grey road at speed, their capes having done little to slow their untimely descent.

"So this is gonna be a regular thing for us?" Scout checked, just to confirm. They army crawled to the pavement and clambered up, which took about twenty minutes because Scout got stuck in a drain. Soldier had just kicked him onto the kerb when they witnessed something _awful_.

Truly awful. Like, wow – kids don't even read this.

_A lady was totally stealing that car._

Now what the mercs failed to notice is that she was simply using her car key to unlock said car. No theft involved. Kids you can come back now, reading is a safe space again.

"JUSTICE MUST BE DEALT!" Soldier cried, charging. Scout caught on quickly enough and scampered after him, the REDs making enough noise to get through to that guy at the back of the room who always has headphones on and usually hears nothing. Hm.

Apparently the 'thief' was something of a gymnast because she bloody _backflipped_ out of the way, wondering all the while what exactly was happening. The car door remained open, seeing as she'd just opened it, y'know, legally and all, so Soldier came up with a superb idea;

"We should take this car to the police!"

"Freakin' A!"

…

And that's how Soldier and Scout inadvertently stole a car.

~POLICE STATION~

"OH I FLIPPED IT! OH JESUS I FLIPPED IT!" We rejoin our heroes during one of Scout's panic rants. "WHY'D YA LET ME DRIVE?"

"Hm," Soldier thought aloud, calmly watching the upside-down-world glide across the windshield. "Y' know, I couldn't tell you."

Eventually the car skidded to a halt with a groan of protesting metal and a nice wee tinkle of broken glass scattering everywhere. Adopting fairly neutral expressions, the heroes hopped out.

"Yo, we got it right outside the station," Scout observed, a little bewildered but mostly in 'aw yeah' mode. "Super."

"Fine work! Let's move out!" Soldier subtly hustled away, dragging Scout along and yelling; "ABSCOND!" because he hadn't since Shopping Trip. Leaving the stolen car there, they jogged down the street like they owned the place, dodging the lines in the pavestones.

Civvies parted like the Red Sea for them too, though this was probably not a respect thing as much as a 'guyssss it's them again run the heck away' thing. The only thing missing, despite this fact, would be a theme song!

"Bat Boy! You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" Soldier asked, grinning and flailing his arms out of spontaneous excitement.

"Tacos?" Scout colon-capital-D smiled, then he realised. "Oh, uh, I mean, THEME SONG HELL YEAH! I like when the narrative gives us clues."

"HUTTAH! TO THE ROOFS!" Discreetly, as was always the REDs' style, Soldier whipped out his rocket launcher and they used it to jump to the top of the nearest building. Trial, error and shouts of 'parkour' fuelled the mercs as they sailed above the city and somehow made it back to the teleporter.

~RED BASE~

Scout and Soldier emerged from the garage, blinking in the sunlight as they approached the… base?

"How'd the base get fixed." Scout deadpanned, staring in awe at the magically restored structure. The rest of the team stood there too, admiring the bright red building, and Engy replied;

"Nice guy in the city, called himself Felix, fixed it." He shrugged, wondering what the author just made him reference. "While we were there, there was a crime wave, would ya believe."

Scout and Soldier blanched.

"Yeah, shop got broken into and a car got nicked," Sniper elaborated, though fairly disinterested. He chucked another hat at Heavy, who was going for some kind of hat height record. "No idea who did it."

"Though I see no way zhis could be plot important," Medic said brightly, absently petting Archimedes. Soldier and Scout visibly relaxed, letting out immensely loud sighs of relief. Most of the team skated right over this, Pyro and Demo blatantly ignoring it as they grabbed a stepladder to pile more hats on top of Heavy. THEN SUDDENLY SPY;

"And where were the two of you, by the way?"

Sweating nervously, the mercs/heroes in question stared blankly forward for a good five minutes, false-starting sentences innumerable times. After a sizeable wait Soldier managed to blurt,

"NOT at the city."

Demo mumbled something about that being alright then in the brief space of time he _wasn't_ falling off the ladder. Heavy proceeded to collapse on top of him under the weight of nine hundred hats, distracting everyone just the right amount; no one pursued Soldier's rather obvious lie.

"Yeah, uh, _nothing to do wit' this at all_," Scout casually gazed at the sky, "Can you play a superhero theme song, hardhat?"

Glancing up from the squished Demoman incident, Engy looked thoughtful.

"Don't see why not." Teddy Roosebelt briefly vanished into his ammo belt, then resurfaced with his guitar. Which totally makes sense. "Thanks Teddy. LET'S DO THIS!"

Incidentally, hiring Engy to play this particular genre can easily force him out of character and turn him… frankly, insane.

That's why, with sick guitar music shredding in the background (and the foreground, it was that epic) the amazing Rocket Man and Bat Boy overflowed with motivation to go save the people of the town by the sea.

To the teleporter mobile!

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**Thanks for reading, reader! DISMISSED.**


	3. X-Merc Origins

Chapter Three – X-Merc Origins

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**Wow guys, thanks for the reviews! Go buy yerself a nice hat or somethin'. Don't like hats? **_**Get outta here I ain't even kiddin'**_**.**

… **Whaddya mean I can't threaten the readers?**

**Ugh. Back to the story! *SCOUT FLED***

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~THE TOWN~

A little something something that hadn't occurred to the pair of almost-heroes was that music lacked the ability to go through a teleporter, and short of having Engy follow them around all day playing their song, there wasn't much they could do about that. They had also forgotten the teleporter in the town had been placed on a sloping roof.

"WHY!?" Soldier shouted, achieving his umpteenth fall of the day and landing on his backside. Scout appeared a moment later and ended up standing on his head.

"Hey pally, whatcha doin' down there?"

Soldier moodily stood up, which didn't do anything to shift the Scout, so they walked into town as one really tall moron. Nice place, the seaside town. Neat rows of wee houses, convenient little shops every here and there, mild weather and a dock _just perfect for finding crime_.

With a lethargic, salty kind of breeze idly buffeting their capes, Soldier and Scout headed along the straight road leading directly to the water. And got lost.

"This is my world," Soldier stated, "Being lost is not welcome in my world."

"We ain't _lost_," Scout responded huffily, "We just dunno where we are. S' different." Soldier however would've been listening more had there not been for-

"PEOPLE UNSAFELY CROSSING THE ROAD!" Oh that wouldn't do.

The mercs dashed along the pavement and full-on tackled a group of civvies who'd barely set foot on the tarmac. They didn't get much of a protest in before they were gifted with a nice old condescending, probably insulting verbal attack from Soldier;

"Look. Both. Ways. _Maggots!_"

… Was that it? Usually he- okay, whatever. Would've broken my keyboard if he'd ranted too much anyway.

Anyway the civvies, living there and such, were fully aware the road was closed and there seemed little chance of getting squished by a car. If any chance. There was none. Ahem. Naturally they attempted to explain this, only for these people they hadn't met (who seemed awfully fond of the colour red) to materialise on either side of their wee crowd and abruptly rush them to the other side of the road. Regrettably, this got them launched into a building, but there wasn't much that could be done about that.

"'Nother job well done!" Scout proclaimed, and the REDs highfived, vocalising the tune of their theme song. The civvies removed themselves from the wall and ran off while they were occupied with that. The danger had passed… _for now_.

"Wait what are these things?" Soldier absently kicked some kind of plastic barrier stretched across the road. There was one down the other end too. "GASP," he cried, "They're blocking access to this road!"

"People could hit them and _oh my God they wouldn't even get onto the road to fly down it_," Scout acknowledged in undisguised horror. "We gotta get rid of 'em!"

They pulled weapons out of thin air and shot the Hell out of the first barrier, leaving florescent chips of bright plastic like rebellious teenage snowflakes covering the ground. For the other one they heaved it up and haphazardly chucked the thing away, watching it sail majestically over the nearest building. Proud of their work, they failed to hear the distinct and uncommon sound of a road-works fence hitting the roof of a wedding supply van and releasing a flock of doves probably distantly related to Archimedes.

"Success!"

~THE DOCKS~

"How'd we even get here?" Scout glanced around the docks, "Did we skip a scene?" Soldier shrugged over-enthusiastically, shoulders somehow rising above his helmet, then sauntered off, on the hunt for a good deed to do. Stuff always goes down in the docks.

The great news was that nobody seemed to recognise them from that boat-commandeering incident a while back, or the calendar-commandeering. Or any of the countless other things the REDs destroyed or stole that day. A couple of folks hanging around though ceased to be there all of a sudden, likely out of 'well they're gonna be trouble' vibes.

Ironic, really.

Every footstep they took on the wooden pier eluted an unpleasant creaking noise, which, they reckoned, set the atmosphere a bit. Waves sluggishly sloshed at the wooden stilts beneath, like they kinda wanted to get up but really just couldn't be bothered. Scout and Soldier ignored the scenery however and instead moseyed past, scanning each of the docked boats for signs of trouble afoot.

They didn't have to wait long; already a tragedy!

"That boat's going rouge!" Soldier yelled as a little fishing boat glided from the peer without a sailor in sight. "AFTER IT!"

Scout hastily doubled jumped over there, then used the two-player teleport system to get Soldier across. Legit.

"Um, can I help you?"

The mercs whipped around to source the confused little voice, and had they a shred of sense they would've realised it was actually the sailor, not a-

"G-g-g-ghost!" Scout yelped, suddenly clinging to Soldier, who cried;

"Like zoinks!" He started the running away animation then abruptly halted. "Waitwhat what the Hell is 'zoinks'? Darn meddling author."

And I almost got away with it too.

"Seriously what even," the sailor derped, having literally no understanding of the situation. This may have been a mistake as it drew the REDs' attention straight back to him. Scout awkwardly let go of Soldier, hit the floor and shuffled to a respectable distance, muttering something about 'stupid ghosts and their stupidness'.

"Listen here, ghost!" Soldier sticking with the ghost idea it would seem. "This boat will NOT be taken as offering to whatever ghost overlord you're serving! BE FREE, BOAT GHOST!" He promptly shoved the man into his rocket launcher and shot him skyward.

Rocket Man and Bat Boy saluted as the bloke flew away over the ocean, taking the distance yells of what was likely abuse as grateful thanks. They both shed a single, very emotional tear then punched each other in the face for being a sissie.

"Well whaddya say we get out of here?" Soldier asked brightly, like that hadn't just happened. "Go do super hero stuff in another section."

"Yeah, let's try somewhere else," Scout replied, "After all, this place is a real… _ghost town_. YEEEEAAAAHHH!"

Long story short Scout received a probably-deserved kick in the lower regions and got his epic win sunglasses snapped in half, all before the REDs set off back to- wait.

"How the Hell d'we get off this boat."

~BACK AT THE BASE~

"Engineer."

Engy ignored the Spy.

"Engineer."

Engy ignored the Spy even harder.

"Engineer, get off the roof. We got another noise complaint from the next town over."

Engy finally spared Spy a fraction of his attention, staring down at his teammate with a fairly disinterested expression. He hadn't stopped playing his guitar with some form of strange intensity since Soldier and Scout left; in fact he hadn't even blinked in a while.

"Oh Ah'll get off the roof," OOC-Engy stated, ceasing in his head bopping in order to split-jump off the top of the base, yelling a combination of 'yeehaw' and 'whoo'.

Spy merely sighed in exasperation, but Heavy caught the Engineer because he was given to understand that was the socially acceptable thing to do. Pyro however took this whole stunt as a stage dive, one thing led to another and Engy ended up on the ground anyway.

Medic took his cue and turned up out of nowhere for a quick healing montage. After a few moments the doctor left a very confused Engy sitting on the floor and addressed the others,

"Past experience suggests Soldier and Scout had something to do with zhis."

Yeah, right about there would be when the mercs abruptly realised they were actually down to seven again. Demo counted out loud and everything just to make sure, even if he got stuck at two. Ha, overused Valve joke for your troubles.

"… We have t' go after 'em, don't we?" Sniper asked reluctantly. The team nodded slowly. "Great... I'll get RV."

~ELSEWHERE (ooh mysterious)~

Nondescript NPC Number One let out a clichéd little evil laugh; "Looks like it's time to randomly divulge our master plan for some reason!" He said to his buddies, sitting nearby.

"Oh yeah," said NPC Two, who was a girl so I can actually write some female pronouns besides RV's for once. Yay! "We almost forgot to do that before doing this crime in the next chapter."

"You mean how we're gonna rob this bank that's apparently next to that department store in section three and it'll be easy to pull off 'cause there aren't any heroes or similar to stop us?" NPC the Third asked excitably.

"Well yes," Two replied bluntly, disappointed she didn't get to say that bit. Then she remembered to put on the evil villain voice, "Yes indeed."

"AWAY WE GO!" One cried, laughing giddily as he ran off, tripped, and smacked his face off a lamppost.

This can only go well for them.

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**Well, uh, thanks for readin' guys!**

… **Yeah Falsie says she has no idea what's happenin' either. See ya!**


	4. Übermensch Returns

Chapter Four - Übermensch Returns

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**(Um, author here- sorry about the wait! B-but… Pokémon X came out… so… he he)**

**Soldier's Log: For legal reasons I have to tell you that no civvies were harmed during the writing of this story! Except that's a lie. We are gonna get **_**all**_** kinds of sued.**

**Thanks for reading! I made you a medal out of this hubcap I found attached to someone's car.**

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Scout and Soldier sat thoughtfully in the boat, watching the world go by. Sea world.

"This," Soldier said eventually, "may have been a bad idea."

Scout briefly looked like he might try to argue the point just for the sake of arguing, but decided against it. Instead he started getting up to do something constructive only to notice a cloud shaped like a frog wearing a hat and be riddled distracted.

Soldier spared him a single awkward glance before setting about finding a way back to land. What was it that people usually did in this situation? Life boats, right? He momentarily removed his helmet to gage whether he could sail in it or not, deciding on the latter after much deliberation.

He plopped the hat back on his head and thought… _hard._ And then-

"HELLO, GREAT PLAN!" The merc ripped his cape off and chucked it overboard, yelling, "IT'S A RAFT!"

Soldier dived onto the red piece of material and promptly sank. The term 'like a stone' applied.

"… You say somethin'?" Scout asked absently, watching the frog morph into a toastie. "No? Sounded like ya did. Oh looky the cloud's a skateboard now. That's cool. Hey Soldier why aren't you sayin' anythin'? I mean you're usually attackin' me by this point- OH MY GOD YOU'RE NOT HERE."

Scout finally assessed the situation and sprang to his feet, only to overbalance and hit the side of the boat with his face.

"Freakin' ow." On the plus side he was then draped over the edge of the boat and able to see the telltale signs of 'this be where Soldier went' in the water.

Oh crap. What was it that people usually did in these situations? Life boats, right? Hm… If he could get the boat underneath Soldier, surely that would work. Anxiously humming their theme song, Scout hopped upright then sprinted back and forth, trying to tip the boat.

This failed however, because that seagull was totally giving him this sceptical stare (who did he think he _was_) so Scout paused to flip it off, only to get thrown clear from the boat. He splashed into the sea and proceeded to fly out a heartbeat later, having been tackled by a familiar figure riding a rocket launcher.

"Hello," Soldier greeted pleasantly, using his arm as a windscreen wiper to remove the dazed Scout from the front of the rocket launcher and plonk him on the back.

"Soldier. _The Hell_?"

"Oh, you know, talking cartoon turtles, magic wishes and all; one thing led to another." Soldier shrugged, banking left. Scout nodded a little, making the 'Fair enough' expression;

"Hey, do me a favour and fly past that seagull. Guy's bein' a dick."

Soldier gasped in horror and back-pedalled immediately so they could circle the offending seagull twice and laugh at it pointlessly.

~TWO MINUTES OF GETTING BEATEN UP BY A SEAGULL LATER~

"Ah, land," Soldier observed, for that's where they were. What they were on? Um.

"Let's go somewhere else for hero work!" Scout enthusiastically dashed around in a forty-eight sided shape. Soldier started doing the robot again – it took the mercs an absurd amount of time to actually make it back to the teleporter and head to;

~THE BASE~

The seven other mercs had piled into RV (Heavy had called shotgun today) and were in the process of choosing which of the teleporters to go through for finding their teammates.

"It was likely those two causing havoc in the city," Spy pointed out, "They may have gone back there."

"Or they're gallivantin' around all the sections carryin' out a series of misadventures." Engy suggested helpfully.

They didn't get into a fight about it though because the missing Scout and Soldier appeared at that moment in the garage, completely oblivious to their waiting fellow REDs and frolicking through Teleporter Three.

"AFTER THEM!" Demo shouted, suddenly on the roof and pointing ahead with the Eyelander. Sniper obliged, putting a second pair of shades over his current ones and gunning RV through the same teleporter.

"AW YEAH!"

~SECTION THREE (THE PLACE WITH THE DEPARTMENT STORE AND STUFF)~

Aggressively screaming their theme song, Soldier and Scout sprinted down the street under the pale grey cloak of the early evening sky. Then Soldier tripped and hurt his knee so they stopped with the running.

Incidentally that made them move slowly enough that RV and the team cannoned right past them without noticing and zoomed away along the road. Funny ol' world.

The pseudo-heroes figured the department store they had oft' destroyed (and gotten away with destroying) would be a nice place to head to. How was the thing being rebuilt so quickly…?

"Hm, door's stuck," Soldier noted, pushing the handle without success. "Hang on, if I move this 'Closed' sign we can look inside." He Frisbee-style threw the sign away and peered into the gloomy shop, joined by Scout.

"Freakin' full of activity," the runner quite inaccurately summarised. "I'll go find an open window, see what's up wit' the door."

Soldier absently bobbed up and down in place while he waited, the motion growing in intensity until he was full on break dancing. He stopped at the nearby smashy noise of shattering glass. Scout reappeared wearing a peculiar derpy smile and, arms akimbo, Soldier said;

"Oh, Scooout." And the canned laughter and sitcom music started up in the background.

ANYWAY. Scout led the way into the closed shop via the window-opened-with-a-brick. It proved to be eleven feet higher off the floor than it looked so there were minor cases of serious injuries involved, but who had the time to dwell.

"Let's find some crime and kick it's butt," Scout pumped an imaginary shotgun and strode along in slow motion, crying inside because _by God_ that was a lot of glass he'd just ploughed through. The mercs split up and circled the entire building before regrouping.

"Find anythin'?"

"Negative," Soldier replied moodily. Then he caught sight of the window they came in through. "WAIT. Someone must've broken in here!" He drew back in horror. "_Or broken OUT_."

He made a series of gestures - including one that seemed like he was diving into a pool or similar – which his teammate eventually read as 'let's jump on outta here and get 'em!'

They did so, and to literally everybody's surprise there were actually three people there.

"Oh," said NPC Two, awkwardly. "Hello."

Scout and Soldier were in super-hero-ass-kicking mode and ready to _do_ some ass-kicking, but they froze at the last moment.

"Goddamn those are some fine-lookin' hats," Soldier stated admiringly, referring of course to the stereotypical woolly (and awfully cosy) burglar hats. Scout nodded approval as the NPCs blinked in confusion. The REDs stared with such intensity at the hats they completely zoned out to everything else.

"Um." NPC One waved directly in their faces, provoking no response. "Well now what?"

The bank they intended to rob was just on the other side of the department store, and subsequently of these two morons. This interfered with their plan a tad…

"OH! OH! I gotta great idea!" Three stuck an arm in the air and flailed it for attention. The NPC sidled in front of the blank Soldier and Scout, saying, "Hey, d'you guys wanna help us move house?"

The heroes heard 'help' and helping was the thing they had spent the day trying to do, so they perked up immediately.

"YES." The mercs blurted, striking a few poses.

"Great!" cried a bemused One, "Our … house… is over here. Let's go!"

Giddily the REDs skipped after the three strangers toward the bank.

~MEANWHILE~

"Right, we have – yeah. Yeah, we've lost them," Sniper absently tapped the steering wheel in a wee tune, slowing down in the middle of the street.

"We should just… never let them leave the base. Ever. _Ever_," Spy stressed, glancing around everyone to make sure they all got it. Then he realised he was being boring and serious so he put on a funny hat and attempted a handstand in the moving RV. Demo paused to snigger, then pointed out that the suddenly blaring security alarm sounding nearby was probably required for plot development.

Pyro abruptly barked like a puppy and pointed out the direction of the noise, leading the mercs to the bank.

~DAT BANK~

"OH MY GOD, WHY DID WE BRING YOU GUYS, YOU BOTH SUCK, OH MY GOD WHY!?" NPC One rather rudely screamed at the klutzy Scout and Soldier. The pair of them pouted, figuring the wall they'd just accidently knocked a hole through wasn't really _that_ bad. They'd only been trying to move stuff outta these guys' house; one thing led to another…

"Well 'scuse you," Scout huffed, over the persistent alarm, "Just tryin' ta help out. Jeez."

"I'm starting to see your villainous qualities!" Soldier proclaimed, showing off the big word he had recently learned. "AND YOU'RE GOING DOWN."

"OH YEAH?" Two prepared to backflip, remembered she couldn't, and blurted, "WELL YOU DON'T WANNA MESS WITH NINJAS!"

Yeah they ain't ninjas.

Either side, as it were, may well have run away, had the security system not kicked in and gates hadn't covered all the ways out. That's why as a last resort the NPC squad and the pseudo-heroes ran at each other and started the most epic slapping fight of the century.

The remainder of the REDs arrived to see Soldier and Scout inside the blocked-off bank, hitting themselves in the face more than anybody else.

"Is anyone really surprised? _Really_," Heavy said flatly, facepalming with such ARGH he broke his own nose. Again.

Medic sighed, and not because of that act of incompetence. He supposed the readers, the awesome ones who read Hiking Trip (love you guys), would want him to use The Thing From The Drawer now.

Then he realised that he, too, really wanted to use It on account of scientific curiosity. Actually _giggling _to himself as he retrieved the Thing from his pocket, the doctor (twice removed) used the mystery item.

Everybody – literally everybody – promptly froze as the effect, eh, took effect. Soldier and Scout had gotten significantly taller to the extent it was just has well the former had a helmet capable of taking on a ceiling. Had they been the type to break the forth wall (a thing they would never, ever do of course) they would have commented on their increase in HP and upped strength stat.

"Um, doc," Soldier awkwardly shuffled around to address Medic, "… What?"

"It's a tarot card. XI Strength."

"… Beg pardon."

Medic sighed, wondering if making references like this was actually worth the effort; "Zhis youth named Isaac gave it to me some time ago. Didn't say much, cried a lot. I think it's foreshadowing our next crossover story in zhe series. Anyway, have fun, you- you… _bottom orifices._"

The mercs and NPCs alike drew a blank at that one, save Engy who kindly explained, "Doc dun' called ya an asshole."

Right. Thanks. With that there came a collective chorus of 'Ohhh' and they got right back to attacking each other, ignoring the fact the police probably should've appeared by now and dealt with the situation in a proper, efficient manner. Surely our beloved super heroes could – oh, no. That- that was brutal. Oh my God. Someone stop them.

"Tha's a lot a' blood," Demo observed, calmly surveying the situation. "Well. I'm gonna go see if there's a chippy still open." He sauntered off, whistling a catchy Scottish tune because yay Scotland.

While he distracted the people in the vicinity like that, Scout and Soldier finished beating up the NPCs and exchanged a massive, insanely loud high five and victorious shout of 'NEUTRALISED!' They proceeded to cycle through all their taunt animations for good measure and practise their 'cool walk' to the nearest door.

"I'm going to ask you what happened," Spy informed them, "And you're _not _going to tell me you just spent the day playing super heroes. Now. What the Hell happened?"

The REDs kicked their way outside and returned to normal as they left the building before replying;

"We were being super heroes," Scout explained proudly, unable to contain another dramatic pose. Soldier added, "For the day!" just in case no one had worked it out.

"Oh," Spy gave a delayed response, absently adjusting his tie. "Well I suppose you were… _super _stupid AHAHAHAHA!"

Only Pyro laughed along with poor Spy, but it probably had no real idea why. Why does Spy try. Archimedes can fly. Something that ends in y.

POETRY.

"Did Spy make a joke again?" the Demoman materialised from seemingly nowhere, actually driving a fish and chip van. "W' need ta' do somethin' about that."

Spy pouted.

"The weird thing is," Sniper said, making no comment on the stolen van and changing the subject, "You two _actually_ did some good there."

"Did stop robbery," Heavy mused, pondering whether this outweighed the destructive things that had gone down also. Eh, close enough. Casually they left the fairly moody NPCs – who had taken to playing a game of charades due to boredom and lack of sufficient other movement ability – and moseyed off into the town. By Pyro's instruction they had to step around the spider web of cracks in the pavement, which proved to be no easy feat in the dark.

A couple of falls and cries for Medic later, the mercs found RV waiting at the end of the road for them. Under the accusingly-glaring moon they clambered in, fighting for shotgun until Archimedes claimed it and everyone else ended up crammed in the back. Sniper subtly cranked up the volume on the radio to drown out their complaining as he drove back to the teleporter.

~THE BASE~

"Day's over. Criminals down, crimes stopped. World's just that bit hatter- better. I meant better. Hats are good though." Soldier coughed uncomfortably.

"Tomorrow the same. That's the duty – heh heh, duty – of a pair a' freakin' awesome super heroes." Scout coughed as well but that was just a throat-clearing situation.

The pair of them, perched on the corner of the base roof, surveyed their surroundings in slow motion, doing the voiceover thing. They'd carefully picked this spot so that if someone should appear at a decent angle below them they'd be silhouetted by the moon, and that would be pretty sweet.

"Today was successful, Bat Boy."

"You said it, Rocket Man."

The mercs stood up gradually, ready to stride dramatically away. Promptly the both of them stumbled and plummeted over the edge of the building.

"Let's never do this again."

"Agreed."

* * *

**The End!**

**Soldier's other log: I hope you LEARNED something today, troops! Crime gets you attacked by fictional mercenaries in capes! **_**Do you want that to happen to you?**_** DO YOU!?**

**Dismissed! Thanks for reading though you maggots are amazing. Falsie says give the readers a hug or whatever. I'm not going to do that. You may have a raccoon. Let me know.**

**ROCKET MAN OUT!**


End file.
